Policy and trade issues for a future regional biofuels market in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the domestic political and legislative context surround biofuels initiatives to highlight what opportunities exist for establishing a biofuels trade network between South Africa (as an anchor market) and its neighbours, specifically in Zambia and Mozambique. By analysing global developments in major biofuel importers, reasons for policy inertia in South Africa, and recent experiences with biofuels investments, we suggest that the likelihood for a regional biofuels market developing is slender without addressing land-related challenges in producer countries and revising South Africa’s domestic legislation.     

A Tale of Two Countries and Two Stages: South Africa,China and the Lewis Model

The paper compares the economic progress of two countries, South Africa and China, in relation to the Lewis model. These economies are chosen because they have interesting similarities and also interesting differences. At the start of economic reform in China and with the advent of democracy in South Africa, both countries had surplus labour: they were at the first, labour-surplus, stage of the Lewis model. It is shown that, since then, South Africa has continued to experience surplus labour: the unemployment rate has risen. By contrast, China’s labour market is shown to have tightened, and there is evidence that China has entered the second, labour-scarce, stage of the Lewis model. The difference lies in their growth rates. There are sections explaining why the South African economy has grown slowly and why the Chinese economy has grown rapidly, in relation to the growth of their labour forces. The Lewis model provides an enlightening framework for explaining how widely the fruits of economic development can be shared.     

Unemployment in Africa: A Fractional Integration Approach

This paper estimates long‐memory models to analyse the stochastic behaviour of unemployment in eleven African countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia) from the 1960s until 2010. The empirical results provide very strong evidence of lack of mean reversion in all series under examination. This suggests that hysteresis models are the most relevant for the African experience (not surprisingly, given the rigidities in their labour markets). Therefore in such countries shocks hitting the unemployment series will have permanent effects, and policy makers should take appropriate action to reverse the effects of negative shocks.     

FINANCIAL INTEGRATION IN THE COMMON MONETARY AREA*

This paper assesses the level of financial integration within the CMA countries, using the concept of the uncovered interest rate parity. The impact of foreign interest rates on the domestic interest rates, in this case the South African rates on the rates of the LNS countries, is analysed. For comparative purposes, other neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe are brought into the analysis. The results from the uncovered interest rate parity approach show that Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland can be considered to be well financially integrated with the South African market, while for Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe it shows the contrary.     

Sub-Saharan Africa in depression: The impact on the welfare of children

This paper analyses the impact of the economic crisis on the welfare of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, an area which includes most of the least developed and most severely affected countries. These countries are characterized by: low levels of skilled personpower, dependency on their primary product exports, small industrial sectors, a lagging food production growth, a high proportion of rural population and a child dependency ratio that is virtually 1 to 1. The situations of Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania are examined in detail. In Zambia where there is substantial evidence of worsening of the condition of children in the 1970s, the most urgent requirement is additional resources, particularly foreign exchange. Such is also the case with Tanzania, while Nigeria does have the resources to develop a more coherent economy and finance basic services adequately.     

THE SENSITIVITY OF SOUTH AFRICAN INFLATION EXPECTATIONS TO SURPRISES

Price stability is widely recognised as the primary goal of modern monetary policy, and the management of private sector inflation expectations has become an essential channel through which this goal is achieved. This evaluation aims to improve the understanding of how the sensitivity of private sector inflation expectations to macroeconomic surprises in South Africa compares internationally, as this provides an indication of the contribution of monetary policy in South Africa to anchoring inflation expectations. If a central bank is credible, the financial markets should react less sensitively to macroeconomics surprises, because they trust the central bank to manage these incidents and achieve the objectives they communicated over the medium to long term. In this paper, the methodology of Gurkaynack et al. is adopted in order to measure the sensitivity of South African inflation expectations to surprises. A comparison of South Africa's results with those of countries in the original studies supports the contention that the SARB (South African Reserve Bank) has encouraged inflation expectations to be relatively insensitive to macroeconomic surprises, and offers support for the inflation-targeting framework as a means to help anchor inflation expectations.     

A real options study on cook stove CDM project under emission allowance price uncertainty

South Korea is one of the countries that have been actively involved in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global climate action as a party to the Paris Agreement. As the national emissions reduction target has been getting reinforced, an increasing number of South Korean firms have been participating into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to secure CER credits, one of which is the ‘improved energy-efficient cook-stove distribution project’ in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to develop a real options model to analyze investment decisions on cook-stove distribution CDM project in Myanmar, where we estimate the optimal threshold CER price that makes the investment economically feasible. We also analyze the sensitivity of the threshold price across the investment parameters. The results show that our project was economically feasible at the time the project was launched, as the KOC prices were generally higher than the investment threshold price. The sharp decline of the KOC prices in 2020, however, deteriorated the economic feasibility of the project. The results suggest that various risk factors should be incorporated before making investment decisions.     

Is there a link between BRIC foreign direct investment and SADC export performance?

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have agreed to strengthen their economic ties, thus paving the way for enhanced trade and investment performance. South Africa's strategic value in BRICS is that it is a gateway to the opportunity-rich Southern African Development Community (SADC). By using South Africa as a production hub for exports to the surrounding region, foreign investors would have ready access to neighbouring markets. This article addresses the question of whether, and in what ways, foreign direct investment (FDI) from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries to the SADC influences the SADC's export performance. A series of empirical analyses revealed a positive causation between BRIC FDI and SADC exports, offering a clear incentive for the SADC to rejuvenate its trade and investment policies and structures, and strengthen its ties with BRIC countries in the interests of attracting more FDI and building a strong and sustainable export sector.     

Education and employment following apartheid protests

Demonstrations, rallies, boycotts, and other forms of protest were common under apartheid in South Africa. Using a compilation of more than 150 geocoded protests between 1948 and 1990, this paper compares people affected and unaffected by protests at every age throughout childhood. Exposure to protests before age 14 was associated with 2.7 percent fewer years of completed schooling. This difference was larger following violent protests, and for African residents of South Africa. On the other hand, people who experienced protests as children were up to 6.9 percent more likely to be employed as adults. The paper considers social solidarity as a possible channel connecting protests to changes in education and employment, and finds that places that had more protests during apartheid had lower reported levels of trust and physical safety in the years after apartheid ended.     

Poverty,human rights law and socio-economic realities in South Africa†

South Africa is a nation of immense variety. It has rich cultural diversity, an enviable climate and an abundance of natural resources. However, it is also a nation with vast economic disparities and a highly unequal distribution of income. Hence, in spite of abundant resources and a seemingly vibrant economy, South Africa still faces an enormous poverty problem that is fundamentally no different from that of other African countries. As in many other African countries this problem of poverty is compounded by the HIV/AIDS pandemic; by high levels of unemployment; by low levels of education; and by a number of other factors. Today, South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world and a Bill of Rights that contains an array of justiciable socio-economic rights. The South African government has also attempted to alleviate poverty and mitigate its effects through progressively developing and expanding a social welfare system and other programmes such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy. The purpose of this article is to analyse the role of human rights (specifically the Bill of Rights in the Constitution) and government efforts to alleviate poverty (through certain programmes and service delivery) in the face of adverse socio-economic realities in South Africa.     

African Stock Markets: Efficiency and Relative Predictability

The weak form of the efficient markets hypothesis is tested for eight African stock markets using three finite‐sample variance ratio tests. A rolling window captures short‐horizon predictability, tracks changes in predictability and is used to rank markets by relative predictability. These stock markets experience successive periods when they are predictable and then not predictable; this is consistent with the adaptive markets hypothesis. The degree of predictability varies widely: the least predictable African stock markets are those located in Egypt, South Africa and Tunisia, while the most predictable are in Kenya, Zambia and Nigeria.     

Pro-poor microcredit in South Africa: cost-efficiency and productivity of South African pro-poor microfinance institutions

This article compares the performance of selected South African microcredit non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have a poverty-alleviation focus against various benchmarks drawn from the MicroBanking Bulletin. Donors, governments and many analysts regard sustainability as the benchmark of microfinance institutions' (MFIs) performance. However, the most relevant question is whether microcredit NGOs are doing as well as they can in their context. Of particular contextual importance is income inequality in a society. South Africa has the world's second worst income inequality, after neighbouring Botswana. This creates a situation in which microcredit NGOs must recover ‘First World’ costs, particularly salaries, from revenues based on clients who can only afford loans on a par with Third World countries. Compounding this situation are structural obstacles to microenterprise in South Africa, as well as obstacles to productivity in microcredit NGOs. Taken together, this creates a ‘salary burden’ for South African microcredit NGOs, which is the highest in the world according to relevant benchmarks. South African MFI managers face significant obstacles to improving productivity to compensate for the divergence between staff and client living levels. These include an inadequate skills base, the small scale of the market, rapid labour turnover, and limited resources for capacity development. South African MFIs face the options of moving upmarket (which many have done), adopting methodological innovation or new product development, or closure. Of these, there is a strong argument to be made for supported savings and credit approaches as an alternative to NGO-based microcredit. Such an approach has the advantages of greater voluntary input and social capital formation.     

Managing urban growth in Lusaka,Zambia∗

The question of urban management is a key issue for policy makers in Africa. The objec‐tive in this paper is to analyse recent trends in the management of urban growth in Lu‐saka, Zambia. The Zambian urbanization experience is of a transition from constrained to unconstrained patterns of urbanization and of the imperative to dismantle the heritage of colonial policies. Lusaka's management performance with regard to the pro‐vision of shelter and services as well as work opportunities for an expanding population is investigated. It is argued that the experience of Lusaka underscores the urban management dilemmas of transcending the burden of past policies.     

PATTERNS OF CO‐MOVEMENT BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND GERMANY: EVIDENCE FROM THE PERIOD 1985 TO 2006

This paper examines the co‐movement between Germany and South Africa by applying a dynamic factor model. Because these two countries have a long history of predominant trade ties, they deemed to be suitable proxies to analyse the channels of transmission of positive supply and demand shocks in a developed economy and the effects of these on an emerging market economy. In contrast to general expectations, the paper concludes that a German supply shock has more of a demand‐shock effect on the South African economy, while a German demand shock is transmitted through price in South Africa. This implies that the policy response in South Africa should not necessarily be the same as in Germany.     

Currency Misalignments in the BRIICS Countries: Fixed Vs. Floating Exchange Rates

In the present paper we attempt to investigate whether the real effective exchange rates of the BRIICS countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa, converge or not to their equilibrium levels. Our analysis is based on the use of an external balance model as well as the implementation of recent panel cointegration techniques. Our evidence indicates the existence of a valid long-run relationship between the real effective exchange rate, the net foreign assets, the GDP differential and the real interest rate differential for each of the six countries of our sample. Furthermore, our empirical results imply that after the adoption of a free floating exchange rate regime by Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and South Africa and the liberalisation of the Chinese exchange rate policy that took place during the last decade, currency misalignments have been gradually reduced, leading the real effective exchange rates of the respective currencies very close to their equilibrium levels.     

Economy-wide implications of biofuel production in Zambia

ABSTRACT

Potential biofuel demand in South Africa is estimated to increase to 1550 million litres by 2025 due to mandatory blending rates. Land and water constraints, however, limit the ability for domestic production. Zambia, due to its abundance in land, suitable climate, supportive set of bioenergy incentives and close geographical location to South Africa, has the potential to meet this increase in demand. Using a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium model, we estimate the macro- and socio-economic impacts of bioethanol production in Zambia from three potential crops: sugarcane, cassava and sweet sorghum. The results show that the development of a single product bioethanol industry has the potential to increase economic growth without negatively affecting overall food security. Further expansion of the industry to multiple products results in larger gains to growth and welfare.     

Improved cookstoves in Africa: Explaining adoption patterns

This article uses the case of 18 projects in 14 African countries to explore the adoption patterns of improved cookstoves and the factors that influence these patterns. Our results show that there is variation in the rate of adoption between countries and amongst rural and urban households. The combined effect of moderately good gross domestic product per capita, history of improved cookstove project implementation and adequate institutional support suggests that consumers in South Africa, Senegal and Lesotho tend to be more aware of the benefits of improved cookstoves and better able to afford them than consumers in countries such as Mali, Malawi and Mozambique. Within the countries, rural households seem to be less aware and capable of affording the stoves compared to urban consumers. These differences are a result of varying levels of income and literacy. The low literacy levels mean rural and mostly elderly individuals are less knowledgeable and appreciative of the benefits offered by improved cookstoves.     

Russian Projects and Energy Cooperation in South Africa

The article discusses the problems and prospects for the development of a Russian nuclear power plants in South Africa, as well as other innovative energy projects in this country. Acute energy shortages in South Africa give Russia a unique chance to enter the African market and create a technological link between African countries and Russian innovations. An analysis of the political and economic situation in South Africa, as well as an assessment of the prospects for Russian business participation in the development of the South African energy sector were carried out using research conducted by the authors in South Africa in 2016, and interviews with Russian and South African civil servants and businesmen.     

Export processing zones as an element of export‐oriented and regional industrial development

Establishing export processing zones (EPZs) is a popular method of creating isolated islands of free trade which provide the export manufacturer with freedom from the cost‐increasing measures implemented to protect the domestic market. In South Africa the interest in using this concept has remained alive, especially because the EPZ has the additional advantage of being used as an instrument of regional development. After account has been taken in the paper of the economic rationale of the EPZ and of the apparent conditions for the successful operation of an EPZ, as deduced from the experience of countries that have made use of this development instrument, it is concluded that the economic feasibility of establishing conventional EPZs in South Africa is doubtful. A flexible approach, making use of the EPZ approach and of the system of duty drawbacks and rebates, could form the nucleus of a cost‐efficient way of providing export manufacturers with the advantages of a free trade situation.     

Local municipality productive efficiency and its determinants in South Africa

This paper assesses the technical efficiency of 231 local municipalities in South Africa for 2007 and investigates the potential determinants of efficiency gaps using the non-parametric data envelopment analysis technique. Efficiency scores are explained in a second-stage regression model using a Tobit regression model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt, using such a technique, to assess technical efficiency at the local government level in the African context. The results show that, on average, B1 and B3 municipalities could have theoretically achieved the same level of basic services with about 16% and 80% fewer resources respectively. Furthermore, fiscal autonomy and the number and skill levels of the top management of a municipality's administration were found to influence the productive efficiency of municipalities in South Africa. Perhaps most importantly, the results depict a bleak picture of the democratic behaviour at the local level in South Africa. It appears that higher income and highly educated households do not feel the incentive to be active participants in public decision-making processes. The paper findings raise concerns over the future of local municipalities in the country, especially about their capability to efficiently deliver expected outcomes on a sustainable basis.